Review: Bargaining With a Rake (Whisper of Scandal #1) by Julie Johnstone

Print Length: 292 pages

Publisher: Night Shift Publishing  (November 6, 2012)

From Goodreads.com: For eleven years, Gillian Rutherford has dreamed of escaping her family’s dark secret and living a normal life. Now, faced with an unwelcome marriage that will chain her to London and the secret slowly killing her, she’s desperate to save herself and the sister she adores. Salvation comes in the form of an American shipping tycoon, and all she must do is seduce him into marrying her. But Gillian’s scheme hits a snag when she makes a bargain with a notorious rake, Alexander Trevelle, Lord Lionhurst. He agrees to help her win the hand of his American friend, if she’ll assist him with exacting revenge against her unwanted fiancé. But the price of the pact may just be their hearts.

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

When I think of this novel, the first thing that I have to say really stood out to me (and not in the best of ways), was the styling of this novel. For a book that is billed as a "regency" novel, I found several things to be odd about it. To begin with, the main characters are left alone and completely unchaperoned numerous times. While I get that this was done purposely by the other characters to help their relationship along, things like this just were not done. And I found it very hard to believe that with the sheer amount of other people present the scandal alone wasn't enough to force them into a marriage. 

Secondly, there was A LOT going on in this novel. So much so that I oftentimes felt lost and occasionally had a bit of trouble remembering who was who character wise. 

Even with all of that, I enjoyed the majority of this story. It was fun to see the way a true romance bloomed between the two characters even with everything else that was going on. I would read more from this author. 

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Bargaining With a Rake (Whisper of Scandal #1) by Julie Johnstone is available from Amazon.com